through the cheese. “Bittab,” I say. “That means ‘of course’ in Levantine Arabic. In Egyptian Arabic it’s ‘tab’an.’ Many countries develop their own dialect. Tunisian is my favorite. It’s singsongy with a lilt at the end …”
Aksel shakes his head, smiling. Beneath the table my foot bumps his. Why does being around Aksel make my skin feel like it is perpetually on fire?
“How many languages do you speak?” he asks.
I drink some water. “Not as many as my father.”
“How many is that?”
“Like a native? A few. But if you include basic fluency, I have a few more.”
“There’s a spectrum?”
“Sure. Many languages and dialects are similar; you can speak one and understand another. For example, after I learned Danish, Scandinavian languages derived from Old Norse took only a few weeks to master. Same with Slavic and Germanic languages. Though we didn’t spend a lot of time in East Asia, I loved Taipei so I tried really hard with Mandarin when we were there. And Africa …”
I inhale, catching my breath. “Africa is the epicenter of linguistic diversity. Thousands of languages and dialects coexist: merging together and breaking apart and constantly evolving. It’s impossible to learn even a fraction of the commonly spoken languages. I learned Swahili in school in Nairobi, but thrived learning less widely spoken dialects, though I never became fluent in any of them …”
Aksel’s eyes gleam in the dancing firelight, “A number, Sophia?”
I stop chattering. I hold up all five fingers on one hand, and all five on the other. Then I close my fists and reopen my right hand with four fingers. “Although if you include proficiency, there are dozens. However, my father says I can only count native fluency …”
Aksel whistles. “I’m impressed.”
Fiddling with my napkin, I look down. “You shouldn’t be.”
“You’re ashamed,” Aksel says. Then he shakes his head and leans toward me. “How can you possibly be ashamed of anything you just told me?”
“I want to be normal,” I explain. “Like everyone else here. But my normal is driving in armored vehicles at high speed while watching out for IEDs …” I eat a cheese-soaked apple off my fork. “Staying at a St. Regis one night—visiting refugee camps with my father and sleeping on cots the next.”
Aksel looks pensive. “You want to be like every person in Waterford?”
“Of course! What American teenager do you know who speaks fourteen languages?”
“Why do you say it like it’s a bad thing?”
“It’s weird! Emma can’t conjugate a verb in French, and she’s taken it since seventh grade!”
“How does Emma’s lack of French proficiency make you weird?”
“It … does!” I proclaim.
“Don’t you get it, Sophia?” Aksel says, becoming agitated. “You can have what your friends have—”
“No, I can’t—”
“Yes, you can,” Aksel says emphatically. “But no one can simply have what you have.”
“And they shouldn’t—”
“Not your past, Sophia!” Aksel’s eyes blaze. “I’m talking about the way you challenge yourself—the way you challenge me. Yet, you remain oblivious to how remarkable, how resilient, you are. You can be anyone you want, Sophia … but no one can be you.”
As we stare at each other, I have the distinct impression that we—our lives—are welding irreversibly together.
For the first time my past doesn’t feel like it’s smothering me, but buoying me.
Later, after devouring several pots of fondue, we retrieve our coats from the maître d’.
“The Kirov Ballet!” I pull a flyer off the noticeboard tacked behind the coat closet door. “It’s coming here?” I utter, astounded. “I saw them in Oslo when I was seven. The prima ballerina signed her slippers for me. I still have them someplace. Or had them. I always loved the ballet—watching, rehearsing, performing. I eventually had to quit because we moved too frequently, and now …”
I pin the flyer back onto the board, laughing, “I should have taken line dancing.”
As we reach the Range Rover several minutes later, I turn to Aksel, “So what do you want to do now?”
He grins, “Are you up for a walk?”
We drive back out of Silver Canyon to the fork by Charlotte’s house. Here Aksel turns left into Eagle Pass. Five kilometers up he points at a high rock wall. “We climbed that,” he reminds me, almost smugly.
Against the rock wall is a huge snowdrift. Only the far side of the road is open. I clutch my seat belt, hoping we don’t tumble into the ravine.
“Yikes,” I murmur, looking back through the rear window.
Farther up Eagle Pass—past several limestone walls with gates concealing long driveways—Aksel turns through an iron gate and onto